Allora & Calzadilla in MASS MoCA’s Eastern Standard

by David Roesing|Mar 19, 2008

MASS MoCa’s exhibition Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China, which opened February 2 and will be up for a full year, features a video by Art21 artists Allora & Calzadilla (Season 4). Often considered to be the next rising superpower, China is currently undergoing radical changes in industry and urban development, and the show offers artists’ reactions to this phenomenon. Artworks examine issues like the changing conception of a city, the enviromental impact of industrialization, and the cultural osmosis between east and west.

Allora & Calzadilla’s video piece Amphibious (Login-Logout) (2005) is one of several works examining the Three Gorges Dam‘s impact on the landscape. The artists focus their attention on the changes happening in the Pearl River Delta, a central manufacturing site witnessed ¬≠ through the eyes of a group of turtles floating on a log as they drift toward the sea.